


Sleeping Sun

by shomarus



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-19
Updated: 2018-07-19
Packaged: 2019-06-12 21:50:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15349494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shomarus/pseuds/shomarus
Summary: Six tries not to smile. She looks ridiculous smiling at something so benign.





	Sleeping Sun

**Author's Note:**

> oldish important piece of writing
> 
> thank you for reading! <3

It’s almost midnight when Waking Cloud suggests they take a rest. According to her Pip-Boy, Six figures they’re close enough to the Narrows that they can make a early morning return and nobody will wonder about it. So they stop for a while, but Waking Cloud does not seem quite so eager to sleep. “There is much on my mind,” she admits with an absent-minded tug of the feathers in her clothes before she realizes that it’s bad form. Six tries not to smile. She looks ridiculous smiling at something so benign.

Six almost asks Waking Cloud to sleep in the Zion General Store with her. It’s only a few paces away and relatively scorpion-free after she and Follows-Chalk had been through with the place. There’s beds, blankets, even a good bottle or two of whiskey to get Six cozied up for the night. But it’s off-limits to them, to her, so Six instead asks Waking Cloud to wait.

There’s some relatively untouched Fancy Lads laying on the ground. Six takes them out of the box and tests the packaging for holes—such her luck, the snack cakes seem good to eat. Not so irradiated, not a speck of mold on the entire thing. Fairly impressive for 200 years, huh.

“What are these?” Waking Cloud asks when Six kneels next to her. Six offers the spongy cake to her and smiles. But Waking Cloud is not quite so eager to accept. “You got them from the Back When places.”

“Ain’t like it’s gonna kill ya,” Six replies with a shrug. “We eat ‘em all the time back in the Mojave, if you’re lucky enough to not have to live off of gecko preserves.” Then she claps a hand over her mouth, because shit, the Sorrows are supposed to be the sympathetic innocent ones and maybe it’s not really good to brag about how you like to chew gecko tail.

Waking Cloud seems amused, or at least slightly more down with the idea. She prods at the packaging and peels it slowly, like fruit. Six grins and bites back a round of laughter. “You got it?”

“I think so. I shouldn’t eat this, right?” The plastic crinkles in her hands as Waking Cloud balls it up. Six does laugh this time, nodding as she does. “It’s the… Erm, what is this again?”

“Fancy Lads snack cakes!” Six replies jovially, tearing the plastic off of her own cake. “Y’eat ‘em like this,” she says, trying rather hard not to cram the whole thing in her mouth like she usually does. Instead it’s taken bite by bite. Waking Cloud follows her example.

“... They’re crumbly,” she mutters a few moments later, though she still seems to be sizing up the taste. “Sweet, like banana yucca. But sweeter than that.” Though she doesn’t stop eating. Six’s heart swells with a certain unnamed feeling and she leans back.

The sunset’s pretty at this time of day. It’s something that Six realizes she’s been taking for granted, or that she’s been too distracted to fully appreciate. Leaning back with Waking Cloud and watching clouds pass and the faint promise of stars on the horizon… It’s peaceful.

Waking Cloud seems to notice this too. “You’re happier here.”

“Hm?” There’s a Nuka-Cola stuffed somewhere in Six’s backpack, she pulls it out. “Whaddya mean?”

She shrugs, “When you first came to our camp, you seemed rushed and… worried. Distraught. Like… a Bighorner separated from its herd, doing what you’re pushed to do. But travelling with you now—well, you seem pleased. You’re interested in whatever you’re doing, and you’re happier.”

Six smiles and takes the cap off her Nuka-Cola. It opens with a satisfying pop. “Yeah? Well, the Zion’ll do that to ya.”

“Then you should stay.”

And oof, there it is. Six swirls her Nuka-Cola around with a dimmer expression. It’s a tantalizing offer, to be honest. “Nah. Can’t.” She takes a swig. It’s sweet, a little too hot for her tastes. Still. “Too much to do back West, not enough of me to go ‘round doin’ it.”

“You do not need to be a mediator for every situation in the world,” Waking Cloud suggests sullenly. “I thank every star I see that you came to us. Not under the most thrilling circumstances, yes, but you came in a time of need. That’s not—that’s not the point though. You wander from place to place and you help because you’re already there. Don’t you think you’ve done enough?”

Six knows she has. Knows that she doesn’t need to keep going, that she’s already earned herself a lifetime of peace for as long as she’s lived. Hell, maybe even a few lifetimes. “Nope. Not even close.” She stretches and looks up at the sky. Clouds are clearing. “The whole Mojave mess… s’kinda fucked up. And if I don’t meddle, then it’ll get more fucked up. You think ‘bout how these nasty baddies might get a hold of everyone you love n’ then you gotta do things. Even if you’re just some scrappy mailman with a pistol and a nasty vendetta.”

“I know,” Waking Cloud replies with a sigh. Her knees are pulled to her chin and she rests her cheek on them. “You’re good like that. But I will miss you. I—I mean, all of the Sorrows will, but this is…” She searches the air for the words for just a little longer before she shakes her head.

“I’m gonna miss you too,” Six replies. It’d be selfish to ask Waking Cloud to come back to the Mojave with her, when this is all said and done. It’s selfish because Waking Cloud has her own role here, just as Six has hers. “Maybe I’ll come back. When everything’s over.”

“I’d like that,” but the question remains unspoken. _Would you?_ Not even Six knows. She simply goes where the road takes her, and she knows that even before she took a bullet to the head she’d been wandering around. The wastelands have much to offer and Six wants to see as much of it as she can before it’s all over.

“Don’t look so sad,” Six says with a sigh, idly reaching out a few fingers to hesitantly brush against Waking Cloud’s cheek before they rest on her shoulders. “Now ain’t the same thing as forever.”

“I know.”

“Your tribe’ll thrive once we chase them White Legs off.”

“I know.”

Six leans into Waking Cloud and smiles. “I’ll think about you when I stab Caesar in his good-for-nothin’ back.”

Waking Cloud stares off into the distance, though a pleasant smile of her own forms on her lips. “... I know that too.”

She stares for just a little longer than truly necessary. Then she lays down. “It’ll mean everything to me knowin’ that you and the Dead Horse tribe are safe. I ain’t a vengeful person, but there’s a line y’can’t cross, and the Legion did a pole vault over it.”

“You fight tomorrow, do you not?”

Six nods. “Yeah. I don’t get scared often. So you don’t have to worry ‘bout me.”

“You might not, but _I_ do,” Waking Cloud replies, leaning down to press a very small kiss to Six’s cheek. “There. A shred of guidance for when you go on to fight.”

There’s a small, disbelieving laugh. “Then I’ll be thinking of you.”

“And I shall hope for your safe return.”

The stars begin to shine overhead. Though it’s small, Six feels as though she’s home.


End file.
